Othello

Synopsis

Othello, a Moor, falls in love with Desdemona but is broken by jealousy falsely encouraged. Shakespeare's most human play sets delicacy and power, trust and jealousy, love and hate, good and evil in stark and tragic opposition. Powerless in the face of their own self destructive instincts, the characters are caught on a downward spiral towards inevitable tragedy.

Our Review:

13 February 2007

Othello is surely the 'problem play' par excellence. Watching the torture and utter ruin of a 'noble heart' for mere sport is akin to a particularly one-sided bullfight. Dan Hilton's production, however, is notable for the near-absence of malevolence, Iago here barely rising above the mildly dyspeptic.

It is a shame, for it unbalances what is otherwise a strongly-cast and gripping production. That SATTF is around to stage an eighth season is in itself a triumph and a mark of the affection with which it is held in Bristol. Closure, which threatened the company last year after it was plunged into the red, was averted by a fundraising appeal.

Happily, Leo Wringer, who played Aaron in Titus Andronicus - the rock on which SATTF nearly foundered - returns to triumph, effortlessly commanding in the scene in which he explains to the Ventian council how he came to woo, and win, Desdemona.

Wringer, slight and dapper in a suit -...

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